I would frankly prefer to see the current Coach building stay too. This site has the luxury of being so big that even if the Coach building stays, the new tower would still have a 40,000 sqft footprint, quite big enough for a modern tower. And that tower would still be be on the eastern part of the site, as we've already seen indicated in preliminary plans.

Since the eastern facade would be covered up by the tower, that just leaves the western facade facing the boulevard to be prettied up somehow.

But this is the best McDonalds. Plus, there are no other drive-throughs...

Ugh. I would be so happy if that McDonalds were to be demolished tommorow. I would rather look at a nicely boxed in empty site than look at that eyesore ever again. McDonalds is garbage and drive throughs do not belong in Manhattan.

This is such great news. The transformation is this currently dumpy part of the city to a showstopper of a business district is nothing short of miraculous.

I would frankly prefer to see the current Coach building stay too. This site has the luxury of being so big that even if the Coach building stays, the new tower would still have a 40,000 sqft footprint, quite big enough for a modern tower.

It would be out of place, and its not as if companies looking to move to the west side will be looking to move into old office space. Sure they could build a new tower, but they need to assemble the entire site to build as much space as they are allowed. This area was specifically rezoned to accommodate larger office buildings, not just new towers. All of the investments being put into this area (new subway, streets, boulevard, etc.) aren't being made to keep the questionable buildings that are already there in place. It would be besides the point.

__________________NEW YORK. World's capital.

“Office buildings are our factories – whether for tech, creative or traditional industries we must continue to grow our modern factories to create new jobs,” said United States Senator Chuck Schumer.

Related is scrapping Extell's 56-story design for One Hudson Yards (Related acquired the site in a land swap with Extell this summer) and is instead designing a 47-story, 1.3M SF office tower to be called 1 Hudson Blvd.....It'll be Hudson Yards' smaller-floorplate option for office tenants (Related is thinking law firms), as opposed to the 2.4M SF north tower's 70k SF lower-level floors. Jay says those were designed for financial services trading floors, and though that sector no longer is a likely tenant, the larger floors are still popular.

Jay's ambitious timing: If the 7 line and south tower (the one with Coach, L'Oreal, and SAP, plus 250k SF available) deliver in 2015, 1 Hudson Blvd would arrive in 2017 and then the north tower in '18. 2 Hudson Blvd, with trading-floor size floorplates again and seven levels of retail (compared to four at Related's successful Time Warner Center), will arrive by the middle of 2019.

__________________NEW YORK. World's capital.

“Office buildings are our factories – whether for tech, creative or traditional industries we must continue to grow our modern factories to create new jobs,” said United States Senator Chuck Schumer.

.......
55 Hudson Yards will be joined by 50 Hudson Yards, aka ‘The McDonalds Drive-Thru Tower,’ which is another major addition to Related’s assemblage. That building will crack the 1,000 foot mark, and appears slightly shorter than the Hudson Yards North Tower.
.......

The scope of Related’s plan is even more impressive than before, and the two new towers will be roughly the same size as the office giants of the original proposal. Though no timeframe has been unveiled for completion, work on 50 and 55 Hudson Yards will probably be finished in the 2020s.

50 HY at left, 55 HY at right

__________________“If I have done the public any service, it is due to my patient thought.” ― Isaac Newton

As I've never seen this idea extrapolated to *any* building that has setbacks, how about this?

What if the architect took the vertical aspect of the stepback and somehow converted it to a multi-angular bay/bow window type of thing? Or take said vertical aspect and give it one angular bend, creating a semi-hexagonal kind of thing? To wit:

|
|
>
|
|
=>
|
|
==> and so on.....Do you follow me?

I think that if they do that, slim it up by at least 25%, lose the zig-zags and keep the facade as is with the railing-type additions, we've got a winner.

Flip it 180º to make the setbacked side parallel to North Tower's ob deck platform.

I think it will be oriented more to the east to protect views from both towers. But I've changed my mind on the footprint. I think it should cover the entire site and pull up to Hudson Boulevard, in keeping with the more dense Manhattan pattern.

The massiveness of this tower dictates it should be taller than 30 HY. That would allow for a better looking tower, and it wouldn't look out of place being taller because of the Sherwood site directly north, which could be something similar to this:

It is very bulky, yes. It looks to me that this tower is supposed to be at roughly the same height as the obs deck in the North tower, maybe they goofed slightly on the height when making the model, and it's supposed to be slightly shorter rather than slightly higher, because you're right, it would make no sense to make it just barely tall enough to block the views to the north for the obs deck.

Guys its a place holder...and why not build an observation deck with an 1100-1300 foot tower next door? you still have the east,west and south. We can build this neighborhood around the height of an observation deck. If push comes to shove maybe 50 HY can have it instead. The deck shouldn't place any height limit on the area.

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